One quirky home chef in Oregon sharing her kitchen experiments with friends

Tag Archives: Chicken

After a years long and very unscientific study involving observing friends and family order at various Thai and Chinese restaurants I have determined that Cashew Chicken is a ridiculously popular dish. Despite this, I don’t remember having made it before.

Anyway, while I am amped up on stir fries this week I decided I should break that trend, I found this one in a book and made it the other night. It turned out well, I liked the basic coating, as it was a lighter version of coated fried chicken.

Besides tasting great, I like how the color turned out. Very fresh despite the slight coating.

What I used:

Three chicken thighs

Half cup of cornstarch

One egg

Broccoli florets

A red pepper sliced

Half an onion sliced

Soy sauce

Sherry

Oyster sauce

Handful of cashew

Several spring onions sliced

What I did:

Cut the chicken into strips

Dip them in a beaten egg then in cornflour

Fry the chicken pieces up in an oiled wok, remove to paper towel lined bowl

Once removed fry up broccoli then add onion and pepper

Add 2T soy sauce, 2T sherry and 1T oyster sauce, stir together.

Add chicken back into the wok, stir together sliced spring onions and cashews.

Serve over rice.

Last night, just to mix it up a bit I made potatoes au gratin. Tonight I am returning to Asia with Lemongrass Marinated Beef….which reminds me I should go make the marinade.

One of my favorite comfort foods is my variation on a classic: Chicken Alfredo. To make it just a tad healthier, and frankly even better I have added asparagus below. Basically this is composed of several parts: Cooked spaghetti (or any pasta obviously, the leftovers were awesome on fusilli), cooked diced chicken, lightly steamed vegetable (in this case asparagus) and a creamy alfredo-ish sauce. Which is what I will discuss here.

First thing you do is make a roux, which is at the core of most sauces, and might at first blush sound intimidatingly French. A roux basically is just a paste of a fat (in this case butter, but in a gravy might be meat drippings) and flour (I almost always use rice flour for the above mentioned reasons. And so if Aimee my GF cousin pops by I can still feed her.) Estimates are serious guestimates. Be warned.

What to do:

Add a couple of tablespoons of butter to a pan and melt.

Once melted add a similar number of tablespoons of the flour. Mix with a whisk into a paste. (The thicker the paste the more you will thin it out. I like making mine rather thick so that I can make it go further on less butter. Anyways, this will always be trial and error)

Once it is a thick slightly bubbling mass you keep whisking.

While you continue to whisk at medium heat (pick up edges and corners, and the bottom so nothing burns) slowly add your milk. (Maybe a cup at first)

Then whisk it in, it will quickly at first, then in subsequent rounds slowly thicken.

Continue to whisk and add liquid until it is the desired thickness. (Dip a spoon in coating the back, run your finger through the sauce, if the line stays clean it is perfect.)

Add seasonings to taste.

Add shredded parmesan, and melt it in.

Add diced chicken and steamed veg.

Stir together and serve over cooked pasta with a sprinkling of parma overtop.

Okay, after all of that roux making, we need to move on to something a little easier, more of a grab and go kind of idea: Chicken Quesadilla Packet. I confess, I love making quesadilla packets. (I will have to go look, but if I haven’t featured my provolone, turkey and spinach one, shame on me.)

Anyway this is my version of a super simple chicken quesadilla. I call them quesadilla packets due to how I fold them for easier eating. Here in the Morris household we have this bad habit of eating while doing other things, so hot dripping cheese oils are preferred inside of the lunch rather than on our hands.

Anyways, this one is super simple, basically I just take cooked chicken (to make even easier deli meat is always an option), shredded cheddar and some taco sauce, start getting it melted like this:

Then fold over and cook the other side (so the seams stay), and then flip it back once more to brown up the back. Viola, a Chicken Quesadilla Packet. Super popular at our house on Sundays, when we get home from church and want to eat RIGHT AWAY. Relatively healthy (I just use a wee dab of butter for the pan/ coloring), and deliciously inexpensive, as most homemade things are…

Tonight’s dinner is brought to you by the theme: What’s fast and uses up things I need to get rid of?

About seven minutes before I took this picture I asked my husband if he wanted some dinner- if you have met David you can anticipate his response was a yes…so looking in the fridge, what did I need to use up? There was leftover chicken from Roast Chicken, greek yogurt that Jeffrey and Libby left behind, and some apples that I dropped leaving the store (expediting their use-by date.) So I landed on a super simple: Curried Chicken Salad.(Editer’s Note: Having made this before with mayo instead of greek yogurt, we definitely prefer the taste of the mayo one, greek yogurt may require additional seasonings.)

au grat·in

/ˌō ˈgrätn/Adjective-
Sprinkled with breadcrumbs or grated cheese or both, and browned.

Continuing the theme of comfort food that has gone with this week’s wonderfully dry cold snap, here is a basic roasted chicken, which I served with potatoes au gratin. Below I will give descriptions of what I did, keeping it ridiculously simple on the chicken, but both dishes really. If you want an expert recipe, versions of both can be found in Julia Child’s classic cookbook. Consult for an expert opinion…

Not exactly a well rounded meal, but delicious!

The Potatoes au gratin got nice and browned

What I used:

whole chicken

butter

salt and pepper

2 potatoes

gruyere cheese (any will do)*

milk

What I did (Chicken):

removed the innards

patted it dry

rubbed it down with softened butter (inside and out)

salt and peppered (inside and out)

Put in the oven at 425 for 15-20 minutes, rotating and browning

roast at 350 until done (check at an hour or so)

What I did (Potatoes):

peel potatoes

slice really thin (I used a cheap mandolin for this)

butter a shallow baking dish

rinse and pat dry potatoes (take off some of the starch)

put half the potatoes on the bottom of the dish

add salt and pepper

add small dots of butter

add shredded cheese

put the other half of the potatoes on

repeat 6, 7, 8

bake at 425 until done (or bake it with the chicken at 350, and when you take the chicken out (and tent it to rest) turn the heat up and move it to the top shelf to brown.)

*For the cost conscious this is a great meal. The chicken was around $4, and the total of the rest (minus cheese) less then a dollar. Using an inexpensive cheddar instead of gruyere would make the whole meal less then $6.
^ Definitions from dictionary.com

The other night I wanted to make a bit of old-school comfort food. Combining that with the chicken drumsticks I had thawed out, and some sausage that our friends had left in the fridge I decided to make a cassoulet. While I am no French trained chef, I feel free to call this a cassoulet as it is in fact a stew of meat and beans. 🙂

What I used:

four chicken drumsticks

half a sausage

a shallot, sub diced onions if you prefer

two carrots in pieces

two celery stalks in pieces

fresh thyme

a little white wine

some chicken broth

two cans of cannellini beans

What I did:

browned the chicken pieces in a little olive oil in a dutch oven

removed the chicken to a side dish

lightly brown sliced shallot

add and slightly cook celery and carrot

add salt, pepper and a bit of thyme

add slices of sausage

add some wine and let it cook off the alcohol

add cans of cannellini beans

add a cup of broth

put the chicken back in

simmer on the stove until the chicken is fully cooked (can cook it until the meat falls off the bone if you like)

add a wee bit of cornstarch mixed with cold water if you want to thicken the sauce up

Fantastic served with wine and crusty bread. I never do it, but in theory, might be nice with a salad.

* To make this even easier/faster, you could use other chicken, either cooked up already, or boneless diced chicken breasts. Though the longer stewing time does allow the flavors to mingle better.